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C377 



SAINT HELENA 
AND OTHER POEMS 



TO REV, ASA DALTON, D.D. 

FRIEND of my youth when youth had but begun ! 
I knew thee ere our city knew thy face. 
As child would know, I knew the man whose place 
Was in some larger world his worth had won. 

A man in world of men, thy world I see 
Above the common striving. Let me greet, 
In sage' s world — whose height is my defeat — 

Thyself, companioned by the like of thee. 

I make me bold this tribute book to bring, 
This overmuch of mingled dross and gold. 
To one whose years are all unmixed, one old 

In nothing that survives their numbering. 




O cn'Viaiuvt^^ w J^iAi/yz^zJL. -fi f(A/n>OMnriythJ 



SAINT HELENA AND 
OTHER POEMS 



EDWARD CLARENCE FARNSWORTH 



PORTLAND, ME. 

SMITH & SALE 

1910 



I^?'^'' 



■Ki 






COPYRIGHT 19 lO 



EDWARD CLARENCE FARNSWORTH 



*ci.A2(>89;<;3 



CONTENTS 






PAGB 


Saint Helena 


. 3 


Old Glory at the Pole 


. 23 


Regret .... 


. 25 


Summer and the Bird 


. 27 


Birdie .... 


. 28 


The Skylark 


. 29 


The Secret 


. 30 


A Song of Joy . 


. 31 


May -Time 


. 33 


Soul Mating 


. 34 


Your Eyes 


. 35 


My Morning-Time . 


. 36 


Chopin at the Piano . 


. 37 


Berceuse .... 


. 39 


The Sea Prowler 


. 40 


Leviathan 


. 41 


The Harper 


. 42 


Marguerite in the Garden . 


. 43 


On Reading the Second Part of ( 


joethe's 


Faust 


. 44 


To Blanche 


. 46 


The Temple and the Christ 


. 47 


The Prodigal Son 


. 50 


The Marriage at Cana 


. 51 



CONTENTS 






PAGB 


True Riches 


. 52 


Light 


. 53 


The Ten Virgins 


. 54 


The Good Samaritan 


. 55 


The Parable of the Vine . 


. 56 


Love-Wisdom . 


. 57 


The Parable of the Leaven 


. 58 


Divine Healing 


. 59 


The Last Review 


. 60 


A Song of Labor 


. 64 


King Edward . 


. 70 



VI 



SAINT HELENA 



SAINT HELENA 

"IIT'RECK! Wreck! O helpless wreck, 
* ' flood-cast and lone ! 

hapless wreck the ruthless reefs do grind ! 
Abandoned hull ! thy tough and towering masts, 
Gale-broken, splintered, gone by the board, no more, 
Ah ! never more sustain the mighty spread 
Which else would wing thee from this hateful isle, 
Bare, rock-upheaval of Earth's prisoned fire, 
Mid-ocean's never-liberating keep. 

Hell's half shut door not hiding yet the world. 

Poor, ruined relic of thy shapely self ! 

Mere lessening remnant of thy beauty's whole ! 

1 knew thee, weatherer of a hundred storms, 
Death-cheater in the midst of foundering fleets, 
Immune in battle, leader of the line. 

The flagship whose dread cannonade could drown 
The sky-born thunders gathered o'er the main. 
I knew thee well; none better knew; in truth 
Am I thy breaking bulk ; of me, even me 
The staunch wave-rider, now the tides make toy. 
How warping suns and rotting rains increase 
The sad, continual waste from what I was! 
From what I was ! Ah yes, from what I was! 
But surely more than any ship was I ; 
A more than men have fashioned to obey 
The helmsman's puny turning ; yet this end 
Dulls not one ray, one glory, of that hour 



When, all surpassing, rose my star on me. 

No lie can smirch the fame of fiery deeds 

In face of France and Europe and the world; 

No thief can filch Time's goodly recompense, 

For when on me falls neither sun nor rain, 

And no wild storm disturbs, and not a beam 

Of the round moon illumes my hiding, then, 

Yes then, unto my rest shall pilgrim far 

The Nature-prompted might and manhood bom 

To loathe the commonplace of little lives. 

With voice sunk whisper-ward, and mien subdued, 

From hearts of homage reverently they speak; 

"Lies here the limit of our fruitful quest; 

Our Mecca here, our kneeling shrine ! Hark ye ! 

How clearly is from lips of dust vouchsafed 

The sluggard-shaming speech that moves our veins ! " 

This then is mine though Fortune, traitorous luring 
To proud Ambition's giddy summit, there. 
Like to the crafty fiend of eld, displayed 
Earth's waiting kingdoms far and near. How fair 
The summer-wooing vales vine-walled around, 
The glacier-burdened peaks, the northern steppes. 
The bloom of southward field and sky, the ships 
And navies anchored and at sea, the streams 
That, through historic sites and cities, mirror 
The famed bequeathings of the classic age ! 
The calm of lakes how fair ! How fair the rills 
That jet and sparkle o'er the rocky brink ! 
And many a plunging cataract how fair ! 
And many a trackless gloom of hermit wood, 
And many a semi-solitude of shade. 
And many a scythe and sickle-waiting glebe. 
From Peter's northern capitol to where — 



Beyond the continent-dividing flood — 

The pyramidal tombs of Nilus raise 

Honor perpetual to the sovereign dead. 

The sovereign dead ! With scorn and pity, both, 

I 've chanced on where the rustic clod made green 

His low ambition and his final gain, 

The earthy mould to which his soul was wed. 

Rude-lettered rhyme, uncouth, sufficing, taught 

The plodding, plowing villagers the tale. 

That vacuous nothing, his poor span of days. 

Meanwhile the world he stirred not rolleth on ; 

The great, full world all busy by him rolls. 

The sovereign dead ! The deathless sovereign dead ! 

The stern, iron-handed moulders of that clay, 

That easy-shapen clay, the usual man ! 

On Earth's huge round, as on a minted coin, 

Their name and likeness long outlasts their years. 

Rut-shunners, in new roads their chariot wheels 

Strike fire, their horses neigh with joy indeed. 

Custom-ignorers, to themselves a law. 

Behold in these the pattern of the new ! 

Prophetic dreamers, time-outstrippers, lo. 

In temple, fearless at the very shrine, 

They preach offense, a higher, grander truth. 

Vessel-breakers they that so the wine of life 

In larger, stronger hold may sparkle pure. 

War-bringers that untroubled quiet crown 

Their rule of subjugated rivalries. 

In truth world-overturners they, the means 

Of Heaven-ordered change. Their mortal end 

Some day leaves vacuum Nature must endure. 

In death the lion heart at last is low ; 

The sore-bereaved time up-points the shaft 

And graves on sculptured stone immortal deeds. 



Oft looking on the limitless, lone sea 

Where, solitary one, the fisher bird 

Is sinking, soaring, and unfrequent sails 

Wing near this rock, — then wholly pass me by, 

Mine eyes desire the north invisible 

Earth's curving round behind. Hov»^ far ! How far ! 

Thou loved, lost land ! How far ! My darling France ' 

My foster child, than mine own kin more dear ! 

Orphaned I found thee of thy Bourbon sire 

Thou prey of ravishers at home, brute men 

Of tiger mood. Meanwhile, with cannon clamour 

And brandished steel, vindictively upstood 

The alien armies round about thy realm. 

'Twas then from nether pit of shame I snatched. 

As parent watched and tended, counselled, whom 

I saw most statue-like upgrow a queen. 

Befitting thine estate, with broken crowns 

I jewelled thee ; rich kingdoms were thy dower 

O thou impoverished long ! O child so poor ! 

Lamentest still thy present orphaning .? 

Or dost, insensible to loss, forget? 

Or, as the false, palm-strewing multitude, 

Art thou ingrate, of fickleness the symbol.'' 

Not so. Alway, for love of me, thy brave, 

As never Roman cohort strove, have striven ; 

As never legion for their Caesar fell, 

Have fallen. 'Neath Egypt's cloud-shunned, 

pitiless dome 
Their life, outpouring, drenched the torrid sands 
Where rainless heavens dropped no cooling. Once 
Was Nile encrimsoned ; once her banks were strewn. 
There, horse and rider, lay the Mameluke 
Death-stayed in rout, while down from Cheop's height 
His forty centuries were looking. Once, 



Ripe rose of Italy's sun-rising; once, 

Sweet rose of her sun-setting, blushed a sod 

With richer red than roses wear. Your blood, 

O heart-drained liberators of the South ! 

Nourished, as on your soil of France beloved. 

The flower of liberty. Flashed forth one morn, 

From out the wintry East, an omen bright, 

The rising orb of matchless victory. 

Betimes it saw the plight of humbled kings, 

The shifting bounds of continental states. 

The keen heart-stab at plotting England's hopes, 

The dire defeat to Pressburg leading; whilst 

Myself, that saw my hope's ascension bright, 

More bright than warring god's good shield, did hail 

The sun of Austerlitz. And in reverse — 

The which even gods have known — reverse indeed. 

Consummate doing of the mischievous fiend 

Enkindling, like his hell-abode of flame, 

The templed city of the olden Czars ; 

Yes, midst the dull despond of baffled men — 

Than weary limbs their hearts more heavy-weighted — 

Hoping no more a Wagram or a Jena, 

A fame in death like these hoping no more; 

Amidst the woe of miles endured was I, 

The Emperor, their "Little Corporal" still. 

A fadeless vision of the sumptuous East 

Filleth my musings with a vain regret ; 

The gorgeous East, barbaric splendor bright ; 

Voluptuous, wooing, tropic East I knew; 

Enchantment wrapt in radiant, sunny airs ; 

The East to burning zeal enkindled all 

If touched by some Mohammed heart of flame. 

That East awaits the dominating man. 



A frenzied urger of a bigot creed, 

Or him the tolerant, contained, and mild, 

Turning the ponderous wheel of faith. That East 

Awaits an Alexander more humane. 

The soldiers' idol and the people's love. 

Fain would I near the delta of Ganges pile 

More costly stone on stone than did Haroun 

In Bagdad midst her caleph days of prime. 

Perchance a varied glory I 'd upraise, 

Hoar Karnak's bulk, the growth of dynasties, 

Alhambra's grace ere yet her woes befell, 

And Corinth's marble beauty tipped and towered 

With gold. In orient capitol should blaze 

My jewelled throne of Ind, no Tamerlane seat 

Of fleeting power. Beside the sacred stream, 

At Buddha's shrine of peace, would I revere. 

I 'd palace near the emptying flood of Nile, 

Or, on the Ottoman Sultan's Bosporus hill, 

Behold a more than that Byzantine dome 

Justinian lifted o'er Sophia's walls. 

Of Islam son, I 'd gain her birth-place holy, 

A turbaned pilgrim, find the prophet's rest; 

The desert hordes enlisted to my will. 

Myself, Napoleon, "lion of the desert," 

Would sweep Arabia's waste a whirlwind terror; 

Or, 'neath the bannered lion and the sun. 

Again I conquer Cyrus' empire old. 

Rekindle bright my Persia's Gheber fire; 

Or, neutral lord of lands diverse, I blunt. 

With smoothing law and act, the bitter spears 

Fanatic fools thrust each in other's heart. 

Such course, expedient, is Wisdom's way 

Since never Faith to certainty attains. 

And Error drags at her most heavenward wing. 

8 



Grained in its fibre, mingled with its blood, 
A nation's legacy of fixed belief, 
Proved just and decent, meeteth best its need. 
So I to France her church restored, the which 
Pretended Reason's goddess, harlot thing, 
Had long defamed, insulted and defiled. 
Shaming her bestial birth, I did renew 
The order of the good Gregorian year. 



Again the Infinite, that dwelleth deep — 

So saith the sage — at center of our life. 

Dilates my being as in other days. 

Alexander, Caesar, Scipio mix in me 

Lord of all lands, tri-continental king. 

Gibraltar and the Dardanelles I hold ; 

I harbor in the Bosporus my sail ; 

The Mediterranean bears my merchant fleets, 

The Black and Caspian win my laden hulls ; 

The Adriatic woos them on to Venice; 
Marmora bideth to the Russian ports. 

Scorning the tedious doubling of the Cape, 
Suez I channel that at once they steer 
O'er Pharaoh's burial to the Indian sands, 
Ceylon, Sumatra, and the island wealth 
Of Australasia and Niphon the far. 
Himalaya stays not whom no barrier stays. 
Huge China, waked from olden lethargy, 
Beholdeth me the western-risen sun. 
And all men do the axle change behold 
Of their so puny-turning, little sphere. 
But ah, what discord sudden pains my ear! 
It jars upon the rapture of my dream ! 
It startles from Trafalgar and the Nile! 



They rend me England ! rend me evermore, 
The iron mouths of thy determined war ! 
O England ! England ! England ! But for thee 
My plans the measure of my deeds had been ! 
Even when a Titan dazed, dethroned, I lay, 
A peasant people then had borne me high ; 
A million hearts for me their tide had poured. 
But ah, the flood, the deluge unto France ! 
And I was weary, weary of it all. 

There cometh to the king a crownless hour 

When slips the sceptre from his hand of clay ; 

Nor is he joined to dust ere men do cry, 

"Long live the king ! " Soon humbled, death-deposed, 

Soon sunken to the hungry worm are they 

That wrought my fall, that on my ruin gloat. 

How goodly seemeth, on the crest of toil. 

Ambition's prize ! At distance but a star. 

It groweth soon a world whose rounded vast 

Henceforth a thousand orby fires shall hide 

Whilst to the climber laudings thus arise ; 

" Star reacher ! King, sky-crowned with starry sheen ! 

Thine eyes, like stars, the golden night survey." 

A king ! A crown ! What mortal jealousies ! 

What gilded goal since men would masters be ! 

What mock of gain ! What woe of heapen ills 

The which wise Caesar, wiser, had refused 

Alway ! In power his peer, in wisdom less, 

I spurned not once the crown and kingship, sweet. 

Of what, through me, should be than Rome more 

mighty, 
A wider, worthier France than Bourbon ruled, 
Girt by the army, our safeguard of peace. 

10 



Long, long, O land, thy doom it was to bleed ! 
From almost death-wounds fell the drops of gore. 
But when indeed thy foes were smitten, Peace, 
The stauncher of thy cruel loss, appeared. 
When soon in thee thy native vigor wrought. 
Straightway the warrior in me wholly turned 
To that wherefor my righteous arm had striven. 
Pacificator of the realms, I hid 
In scabbard thy renowned and just defense. 
And now, O Fate ! wast thou fair promiser 
To this my project dear — a peaceful land, 
Model of lands and of the world to be ; 
A sober France for all the drunken past ; 
Order from riot, revolution sprung ; 
Safety upbuilded on the fall of Terror; 
A France of statesmen, orators and soldiers, 
Of sailored merchantmen and ships of battle ; 
A France of field and farm and vine and olive ; 
Resourceful France of thriving towns and cities; 
Just framer of the equitable law ; 
Arena of the worthy humble-born ; 
Retreat of the mild, meditative sage; 
Patron of Science, of all learning patron ; 
Skilled trainer of the skilled in every craft; 
Fountain of Music, fount of mellow song; 
Mother of poet-choosers of that theme. 
Wherewith the painter shall achieve his fame. 
The empire-building of a hundred camps. 
Smiled thus my orby dream, alluring star; 
Smiled thus my sweetly-drawing, planet fate. 
Grandly it grew ; a splendour fellowed not 
In heaven's high-over-hanging hemisphere. 
How soon did Envy, spying Envy mark ! 
The shameful envy of the rival stars! 

11 



Woe ! woe ! This hope's defeat ! This dire downhurl ! 
This far, sea-banished rock of wretchedness ! 
This ending of a King from whose high seat 
A throne-debaser truckles to the mob ! 

The scholar, curious, busy with the past. 

In long succession views the affairs of men, 

The fortunes and calamities that fell 

From Adam unto Noah, and from thence. 

Thereon the calm discerner, he the wise. 

Deep-pondering, a helpful lesson finds. 

But if the maker of events, the mighty. 

Must idle though their crisis bids him on, 

Sitteth he patient, like who choose no part, 

When lo, the world he guided flies the mark ? 

How like the sun, that scorned the level East, 

Man lessens from the summit of his day ! 

High-risen, is abased at length a nation. 

At last to utter lack a royal line. 

Wise Nature's choice is he whose dynasty. 

Being new, nears not its Nature-destined end. 

The choice of France were he, if choice were left. 

Yes, he whose brow the symbol did upbear 

Of western empire, even the iron crown 

Of Charlemagne and ancient Lombardy. 

To rid a monarchy of weak misrule ; 

To sweep from Europe Bourbon's base regime; 

To found instead, and otherwhere if best, 

A rising rule of kings unworn, blood-bound 

To me and my transmitted blood, a rule 

Heart-bound to my heart-hopes, a rule spirit-bound 

Unto my master spirit, was my plan. 

For this, and that I shew whence Kings could spring, 

Was I the wrath of crowned incapables, 

12 



A thieving Corsican, my theft a throne ; 
A world-enkindling, world-despoiling thief 
Was I. Forthwith our neighbour of the isles, 
Our treaty-breaker, foe of France and me. 
Deep-plunged the continent in general broil 
By English craft and English gold renewed 
From Amiens onward. Spite, thus thwarting one 
From humble even unto highest risen, 
Blunted of other rise the spur, and so 
Back-turning Europe woos again the night. 



Let "Holy Alliance," let all darkened wits, 

Reverting to the ages dark, uphold 

The right divine of senile kings and lords 

'Gainst one, the choice of millions fit to choose, 

And every worthy that would dare aspire. 

Arisen yesterday, whipped down to-day. 

Men, on some goodly morrow, gain the heights 

And in their rise avenge my overthrow. 

Princes of Europe ! Autocrats of thrones ! 

Quake, quake at mutter of the tongues I loosed ! 

The people speak ! The people ! Soon doth clamor 

The public voice of harsh and stern command. 

No serf, in gaging Russia's realm, so mute 

But, long-enduring, freeth yet his tongue. 

Your ebbing rule, O Princes ! turneth not ; 

With all that hateful tide the shores are done. 

The people ! Ah, the people ! In their hearts 

A hidden spark that Freedom's breath is fanning. 

Red as the Jacobin's wrath it flares ; it leaps, 

Whirling ignition to the winds of Earth. 

Concede, O kings ! If suddenly wise concede ! 

If brute self-interest rule, concede ! Concede ! 

13 



Hark ! On mine exile breaks the noise of arms ; 

It will not back from these incongruous days. 

Look ! look ! on yonder far-outspreading look ! 

My gathered legions meet the allied host. 

Proudly the front deploys ; how brave its menace ! 

Each straining ear awaits the signal gun. 

A dreadful calm ! A death-still moment ! Now 

The sudden, thrilling boom of dread command. 

Instant doth reel this tower, this iron cliff, 

With hideous roar of hundred-fold reply. 

Instant all eyes, all brain, all quick resolve, 

I stand, of Jovian war imperious chief ; 

My messengers on thousand missions fly. 

On, on, battalions ! On, tall grenadiers ! 

Lead on, Murat, your headlong cavalry ! 

On, on, manoeuvering horse and foot ! On, Ney ! 

Pierce yonder right! Maim all its fair outspread ! 

Make din artillery-men with matches lit ! 

Dismount along yon crest the harrying guns 

That stay with heaping slain, the brave advance ! 

On, Souk! Turn, turn the left ! Mow down its pride ! 

Let sword be sickle in this harvest hour ! 

Break forth, Drouet ! On the gained flank break forth ! 

Tear every column with a cannon pour ! 

Grind, grind its bleeding in the shameful dust ! 

Charge now the center ; fearless Lannes, charge ! 

Smite ! smite I you fury ! smite the wavering mass ! 

Cut off, cut off retreat O Berthier ! 

Let lance and sabre, sword and volleying arms, 

Hurl back the ruin of the vanquished rear ! 

Marshals of France, my heart approves you all ; 

And every French death -wooer. Praise to you 

Men of the South, for whom I crossed the Po, 

And you my Swiss, free-born amidst your peaks, 

14 



You patriot Poles, your land remembering, 

Confederates of the Rhine, and many a friend 

Of sweetest vengeance, joined unto our cause. 

Your grievance brought to this just, reckoning hour. 

'T is done ! The prisoned foe bereft of succor ! 

Hell's withering torment walls him every side. 

And all our batteries feed the dreaded flame. 

England, whose bulky spread is round the world, 

In little hollow of my hand I '11 crush. 

Back, Prussia ! get thee back to Brandenburg ! 

Henceforth a palsied death in life bemoan ! 

Austria, remember Italy ! Bernard ! 

With weightier avalanche than leaves his crest, 

I whelm thee more than on the Piedmont plain. 

Russia, forego that dream of Ind ! Thy crown 

Is forfeit ; aye, thy very name unspoke 

In the new Europe that from this doth rise. 

Alas ! alas ! what sense-defrauding show ! 

What wild extravagance of hopeful dream ! 

Yon smoky war, an empty sea-mist clearing, 

Reveals but lapping of the humbled waves. 

And me a broken, humbled, useless man 

In the vast, circling solitude alone. 

Shrinks North mine empire from the inquistor's 

shame ; 
It yields the Spanish Bourbon and the priest. 
The southward look from crest of Pyrenees. 
Belgium is lost me and the seaward Rhine ; 
Holland the maritime, her every sailor. 
Retreats my sovereignty o'er the Alps I scaled 
What time, with mighty project's instant act, 
I brake the Austrian, the Hapsburg yoke. 
How ingrate Milan thrusts my sceptre back ! 
She, once a patriot hailer of its rule 

15 



Beyond the palace of the Papal See, 

Of Lodi and Rivoli soon forgets. 

To Naples are my glittering triumphs cold, 

Duller than smoking of her indolent peak. 

Divorced from fickle Genoa am I ; 

Marengo joyeth not her heart of change. 

What weighs it that in Venice I made cease 

The doge, the council, and the tyrant years .i* 

All Italy is thankless to my sword. 

The mark of thunderous war, my smitten crown 

Lies twisted, broken, on the Elba-ward shore ; 

The shredded clothing of my proper state. 

Stripped clean at Waterloo, doth leave alas ! 

This jailor's scorn, this utter nakedness. 

When, often, to my practiced eye, the beam 

Of balanced fight adversely leaned, myself. 

A saving weight, into the van I hurled. 

Around, at hand-touch, Death my brave would crown 

With glory ample, spotless. As for me. 

In vain the cannon hurl, the musket volley, 

The edged and pointed rage of charging war ! 

Men deemed it rashness, folly. Never I 

Who, filled with sweet foreknowledge of my rise, 

Believed an angel's interposing wings 

Turned either side the bolt, the rending iron. 

The gashing and the prodding steel. So Fate, 

Kind-seeming, though on sore unkindness bent. 

Refused me battle death to lure the more 

Toward that revealing which transformed my shield 

From helping Heaven into plotting Hell. 

Ah, when some foe-encompassed ancient, fallen 

Saul-like upon his once-redoubted sword, 

Did cheat the conqueror of a captive king, 

16 



Held honorable, in honored grave he slept. 

How little doth philosophy inform 

The soldier fit for hot and headlong war ! 

Soldier-philosopher somewhat am I 

Self-murder shunning as not ease of woe. 

Soldier-philosopher henceforth the more, 

From out the wisdom-schools of Greece I '11 choose 

Firm Zeno for my comfortable stay. 

To what grave limit I disturbed the law. 

And who disturbs not."* — none being just save God 

Let me its keen rebound unmurmuring bear, 

This rock my expiating altar be ! 

Ah, 't is not in the winning of a fight ! 
Ah, 't is not in the blazoning of a name ! 
Ah, 't is not in the mounting, of a throne ! 
Nor in the founding of a stable line ! 
That lofty kings have most of happiness ; 
That earth-wide human happiness which seeks 
The serf king-ridden, miserably poor. 
Lo, when the worn campaigner's work was done. 
And quenched the bivouac fire by whose torch 
Remembrance made my dreams a sad farewell, 
Thou, who thy lighter days didst well redeem, 
Heart-winner ! Empress ! Josephine ! With thee. 
Shut from the noisy mouthing of my fame, 
I lived my life's one pure felicity. 
Down-looking from thy sorrow's ease forgive ! 
Enduring, loyal heart ; forgetting not 
Forgive ! Forgive ! When bears the humble wife 
Unto her peasant lord the inheritor 
Of his few acres, meed of bliss is hers 
Denied thee, once of palace and of court 
The queenly grace, and of all women envy. 

17 



What use Ambition's triumph over love ? 

Of what avail its sacrifice of thee ? 

Fortune derides me with a throneless heir 

Whom foes would teach to scorn his father's name. 

As for that other, level was her way. 

Never from prison unto throne upclimbing, 

Her feet are timid at the downward steep 

Low-ending here. Nor could she, choosing, come 

Whose walk is measured by a golden chain. 

Come then my Zeno ! Stoic wisdom, come ! 

Such weak complaining shames the soldier's breast. 

Come, make me iron on this rigid base 

Where thwarted Ocean raves along the clitt, 

Or mourns this lifted rock, his lost domain ! 

Let then the vexing storm forsake the deep 

To drive on me the drenching rain. Let chill 

Discomfort of the salt>' fogs enwrap ; 

The tropic sun from high meridian pour. 

Unheeded let my guards patrol me round. 

And spies infest my rightful privacy. 

And coward Insult more audacious grow, 

The hairs of my shorn strength remembering ! 

And thou, whose trust-betrayal caged a king ; 

Let all the cordon of thine English sail 

Make hopeless of deliverance the sea. 

I would be hardened save to gratitude 

That melts me at love's test, beloved ! in you 

Self-exiled sharers of my banishment. 

Where throng they now who sunned them in my noon 

And fawned and flattered till the even hour? 

Housed 'neath some roof convenient by, the dark 

They shun, the barren where, O proven few ! 

Mistaking, ye would stay my soul's release. 

18 



Full soon your parting deed, your parting word ; 

Full soon your parting sorrow, earliest tear 

That soft betokeneth a general grief 

When many know me as yourselves have known. 

Full soon the circling ocean hems my sleep 

In shadows lone of yonder hermit vale 

That stills at last the solemn bell of old 

Awaking yet my childhood years in me. 

There must my ashes wait a juster day, 

Interment honor 'neath some ample dome 

Of my great capitol, its millions thronging 

To solemn, sad commemoration. Then 

The times pulse by me ; noble times I pray. 

To words and deeds of noble men atuned. 

Safe-gathered to the heart of France I rest ; 

Impetuous heart, toward friends with ardor burning, 

On foes it rains a fierce, volcanic fire. 

O, human-throbbing heart that treasures yet 

The sacred dust of Clovis ! bosom thou 

Alway, death-remnant of thy latest love ! 

I see the army in a vast review ; 
The army marshalled from their worthy sleep ; 
Caparisoned and plumed in soldier wise. 
The army, gallant horse and sturdy foot. 
The shouldered muskets flash a myriad points 
Of bayonet steel ; the hero's blade is bare ; 
The bloody, shredded flags are proudly borne ; 
From balcony and roof and every height. 
Our brave tricolor opens on the wind 
That brings the acclaim of countless multitudes. 
The battle lingers in the warrior's eye ; 
The bugles flare the fiery notes of yore ; 
The drums are throbbing with the long ago. 

19 



Heroic marches of our old campaigns, 

Arousing rhythms, wake me from my rest. 

Soldiers, this day an audience ! This day — 

Your own — of open hearts and open door. 

An audience ! In mausoleum fit. 

In palace-tomb, all marble-throned I wait. 

Draw near, my comrades ! Close around me gather ! 

Recount the glories of our mutual years ! 

Come you, the humblest, better than the proud 

Ambassadors of haughty kings ! Salute 

Your General ! your Emperor ! Believe 

His eye yet looketh and his voice inspires 

When France is ringing with a call to war I 



20 



OTHER POEMS 



OLD GLORY AT THE POLE 

TN thawless regions of untrodden snow 
■*■ The North, forbidding, stern, has builded well, 
Behind the ice-walls and the riven floe, 
His kingdom's long-enduring citadel. 

Not any creature of the earth or sea 

Would dare the rigor of his central hold 

In darkness hid till barren seedtime be, 

And scorned of summer whose low sun is cold. 

The sky is empty of the wandering wings 
That shun instinctively the journey lone ; 

The air is joyless, for the vocal springs 
Are bubbling music in a softer zone. 

What snare ! What fall ! What mystery of fate ! 

Of frost and famine ah, what lingering pain 
Bestrew the highways to the outmost gate 

Of that unreachable man seeks in vain ! 

What ! seeks in vain ? Where Earth on pivot turns, 
The moveless axle of its motion vast, 

Is fixed a banner, and above it burns 
Polaris in the Arctic heavens fast. 

O banner, thwarted oft, determined still ! 

One sharpest struggle and behold, 't was done, 
The deed of fervor and triumphant will 

Whereby the searching Centuries have won. 

O starry sovereign in that northmost land ! 

Upon thy triumph stars have shone ere now ; 
Thy staff is set on many a tropic strand ; 

And alien peoples to our symbol bow. 

23 



Surmount the terrors of Antarctic seas ! 

O'er berg and glacier gain the crowning goal 
Well-guarded as the old Hesperides ! 

Unfurl thy glory at the nether pole ! 



24 



w 



REGRET 

ITH apple bloom the trees were white, 
But summer now fulfills the hope of spring ; 
The years, how have they taken flight ! 

For years are numbered since that blossoming. 

A memory shapes before my eyes. 

One blossom, sweetest of that roofing sweet, 
And I a-reach for flowery prize 

When thou, so near, wast sweetness all complete. 

Ah, had I known ! Ah, had I known ! 

Self-doomed to haunt the shades, of thee bereft, 
I mourn indeed those moments flown ; 

I grieve that in my culling thou wast left. 

Then to yon cottage, once thy home, 

I turn as Moslem will at muezzin turn. 

What spacious temple, what high dome, 

Can so compel me, and my heart concern ? 

Yonder my temple, dome, and shrine ; 

And on its walls a face whose like I keep 
Fadeless and faultless in me ; thine. 

Yes thine ! my dream in waking and in sleep. 

This much of thee, while life shall last, 

Wrests from another nothing of his right ; 

I paint me pictures of the past. 

Dear household pictures round thy presence bright. 

My loss, I paint it evermore 

With brush rich-dyed in every joy I miss. 
I frame thee eager at our door 

To end my absence with a wifely kiss. 

25 



I paint, in beauty at thy side, • 

A child that should in all resemble thee. 
Caressing her with parent pride, 

I know my fondness stirs not jealousy. 

Thou hast of gentle gifts the range. 

A very woman fit for every test, 
Thou keepest faith though others change. 

All this in thee had made my living blest 

Had I but known ! Had I but known ! 

Self-doomed to haunt the shades of thee bereft 
I mourn indeed those moments flown ; 

I grieve that in my culling thou wast left. 



26 



SUMMER AND THE BIRD 

OONG and blossom-scented breath of May, 
^ Sweets of yonder bough, the breezes bring ; 
Breezes that bestrew the grassy way, 
White and fragrant with their scattering. 

Summer, thralled by one I joy to hear, 
Will her wonted term no more await. 

Wooing, winning bird ! to hold her near, 
Every wood-note, thine, reiterate. 

When shall bloom this valley round her feet, 
Morning bids thee splash the pebbly rills ; 

Noon persuades thee to some dim retreat, 
Twilight calls to where the fountain spills : 

Night winds cradle soft the birdling's rest 
Thou hast woven in love's favoring tree ; 

Moons, unshadowed, gild the roofing crest ; 
Stars, auspicious, look all tenderly. 

When to Summer palls thy liquid spell, 
Then, deserted midst the wan leaves' fall, 

Thou in heart free song dissemblest well 
Lest thy loneliness appear to all. 



27 



E 



BIRDIE 

VERY latest leaf has gone, 
And the South has bid you on. 
Birdie, by the wooded walk, 
In the branching maple's fork. 
Hangs an empty nest. 

Many times a pauser here 
Just to catch your morning cheer, 
Well enough I knew that nigh, 
Somewhere, somewhere, O you sly ! 
Lay your hidden home. 

At my feet a broken shell 

Doth to-day a secret tell. 

Birdie, not for me were flung. 
Not for me, the notes that sprung 
From your heart of joy. 

All that singing in the sun, 
All that pleasing, was for one 

Who, so careful of her brood, 

Chose the safer solitude 
Of the gloomiest tree. 

Birdie, 'neath a roofing palm 
Shape the dwelling hid from harm ! 
Should the passer in his pride 
Think for him your notes are tried, 
Let him learn as I ! 



28 



THE SKYLARK 

T TP from the prisoning gloom of night, 
^^ Yon tiny bird the air doth smite ; 
Attains he ever in the height 
Though broad wings fail in weaker flight. 

Where far the dome of morn grows bright, 
He dwindles from the straining sight. 
Hark! midst the utmost film of white. 
To earth and heaven he pours delight ! 



29 



THE SECRET 

T UST behind the curtain, by the new leaves 

^ made, 

Hides the secret, newest secret of the shade. 
Fairer, fairer is it than the summer hue 
Fairest June outspreads above ; her daily blue. 

Ah, the blue shall brighten nevermore the nest 
Now a swinging, gently swinging, now at rest. 

Little mouths are open, little throats complain ; 

Mother, mother, careful mother, come again ! 

" Chooseth she to linger ? Whither would she 

fly.?" 
Peace, you birdlings, hungry birdlings, she is by ! 

Quick I drop the curtain ; quicker her alarm. 

Timid, timid, think you I would do them harm .? 



30 



A SONG OF JOY 

T ITTLE bird, little bird that I hear ; 
■*— ' What a grief you have told ! 
From the heart of the thicket appear, 
For the shadows are cold ! 

Comes a joy with the morning's increase, 

And the sky brightens o'er. 
Bid the night-fostered sadness to cease 

From your throat evermore- 

Shun the grove lest it burden your lay ! 

Let no heaviness be ! 
Spread your wings for the fields, and away 

To the sun-favored tree ! 

Looking thence, on the open, repine 

Through no profitless hour ! 
There the clover distilleth its wine, 

And the weed beareth flower. 

There the daisy and buttercup spring, 

And the rose is a fire 
New-enkindled, a love-lighted thing 

Long the season's desire. 

There the hawthorn bloomed sweet by the well. 

Overhanging the brink, 
Till the May-joying white of it fell 

Where the wild creatures drink. 

Lo, the violet, freshening in dew 

Till the sun fills her eye, 
Hath a boon from the favoring blue, 

From the deep of the sky ! 

31 



And the bee in his round goeth gay, 

As he toils and he feeds ; 
And the winds through the meadows, at play, 

Float the feather-like seeds. 

And the grasses are rank from the rain 

Whence the fountains are fed. 
Soon the corn groweth up and is grain, 

Or the wheat in its stead ; 

And the apple is shaped from the blow 

That it redden and fall, 
And the yield of the vineyard shall glow 

By the blast-breaking wall. 

Through such days, every moment a joy, 

Are the Earth's doings done. 
Learn her praise that it be your employ 

As her good helping one ! 

Bringing cheer to your new-gotten seat, 

All the faith in you bring 
Though repiners their doubtings repeat 

Where the night shadows cling ! 



32 



MAY-TIME 

BRINGING, bringing to the boughs a singing, 
Cometh bright the May. 
Springing, springing, flowers, her own, are flinging 

Odors down the way. 
Lead us to the sunny glade, 
And the borders of the shade ! 
Lead us to the piney wood, 
And the whispering solitude ! 
Never rose a fitter day ; 

Onward lead us. Onward, May ! 

Peeping, peeping from the vines low-creeping, 

Greet us pink and white ! 
Leaping, leaping, streamlet never sleeping, 

Dance a measure light ! 

Merry brook and blossomed sweet, 

One will prove your joy a cheat 

When his throat of music mild 

Wakes the sadness of the wild. 

Listening to the gentle lay, 

Thou shall sorrow, tender May. 



33 



SOUL MATING 

T IKE some resplendent star 

-*-^ That cheers the bosom of the lonely sea, 

Thy faithful soul from far 

A joy has brought, a happiness, to me. 

O lavish star and soul ! 

Unstinted givers of your light and love ! 
What though the years onroU ! 

True love endures, and so the light above. 

Ere ever stars obeyed. 

Or ocean waited for the welcome shine, 
Creation's law was made ; 

That sweet compelling which doth hold thee 
mine. 

Love was thy guide O star ! 

It drew and bound thee to the waiting deep. 
Thou soul ! not any bar 

Could from its own thy destined being keep. 



34 



YOUR EYES 

^l\ T^OULD I behold where falls the purest light 

* ' Of orbs unequalled in the cloudless night, 
I leave the morning West, the evening skies, 
And turn, a lover, to your tender eyes 
That catch a beam of some celestial star. 
Beyond my seeing, in the deeps afar ; 
A hint of beauty dwelling in God's mind ; 
An urge of something that the soul should find. 



35 



MY MORNING-TIME 

TV/TY morning-time, again your skies are flushing ; 

■*■-*■ My sun of life, your earliest light appears. 

Upon its rays remembered scenes come rushing 
That fail me never through the after years. 
The after years, the after years. 
The heaven-appointed after years. 

From this, my window, all the vision meets me ; 
Beneath my childhood's roof is glimpsed again 
The bygone yester. In each room it greets me 
As long I linger at the magic pane. 

The magic pane, the magic pane, 
The well-revealing magic pane. 

Yon darksome clouds were only half a sorrow; 

As now appearing, ever have they been. 
A hue of glory each did rightly borrow 

From some sweet neighboring joy, its helpful kin. 
Its helpful kin, its helpful kin, 
Its heaven-begotten helpful kin. 

My heart is quickened to a springtime measure, 
A pulse and rhythm loved and learned of old. 
My song is lifted to the gifts I treasure ; 

High heavens-outpouring from her wealth of gold. 
Her wealth of gold, her wealth of gold, 
Her never-failing wealth of gold. 

Shine father, mother, framed in this good dawning! 

Shine sister, brother, in this rising bright ! 
Shine youth, our guest ! Again it is the morning 
When we were thine, and thou our young delight. 
Our young delight, our young delight, 
Our never-aging young delight. 

36 



CHOPIN AT THE PIANO 

TTE sees the sun-kissed lily, and, beside, 
■*■ ■*• Unwooed of day, the night-flower's 

modest bloom. 
He sees the orange spray upon the bride, 
And ah, the wreathed farewell within the 
tomb. 

He hears the mating call at flush of spring, 
The grieving of the grove-hid hermit bird. 

The tree-top anthem, pines a whispering, 
And thunder's awsome inarticulate word. 

Hoarse ocean's wrath doth cadence to a sigh ; 

Sweet, wildly sweet, the themes of brook 
and fall ; 
In rocky bed the torrent hurleth by ; 

Loud seas are booming on the barrier wall, 

And Poland, thou dost lend thy heart-com- 
plain ; 
But now, torn prey of foes, is voiced that 
time 
When soldier-kings did valorously sustain 
The broad dominion of thy vanquished 
prime. 

Revives, in palace hall, the festal day. 

The stately dancing of the king-led high ; 

Returns, 'neath peasant roof, the lissom sway, 
The grace, untaught, wherewith no art can 
vie. 



37 



Again, again the bitter mastering grief ! 

Lost battle, and the unachieving brave, 
Prompt requiem, and those drops of heart-relief 

The patriot pours upon his country's grave. 

What change ! What wizard change ! In 
turn supreme. 

Each mood the player conjures from his soul 
Till all the gamut sings the poet dream 

Wherein he liveth years of joy and dole. 



38 



BERCEUSE 

** I '*HOU seest, child, the cherub wings 

■*■ So near I almost see. 
Kind Heaven unto thy slumber sings, 
Nor quite denies to me. 

Dream on that dream-compelling song 
Star-born as song can be ; 

An earthward message from the throng 
That choirs eternally. 

The rapt, resounding notes grow mild, 
In passage down the deep, 

Till hovering guardians voice, my child, 
A whisper to thy sleep. 

What brook had e'er that silvery purl? 

What breeze that sweet complaint.^ 
What harp such wildering, fairy whirl? 

What bird such love-restraint? 

Thou, Chopin, for an hour made young, 
Didst catch the whisper clear. 

Heaven's inmost, to the man unsung. 
The child in thee could hear. 



39 



THE SEA PROWLER 

T OOK, lurking in the merchant ways a sail! 
-*— ' 'Tis she, the terror of the traveled main ! 
Not ever from her deck a cheery hail 

Greeteth the passer. No ! her masts will strain 
With keen pursuing should the prey appear. 

And then a flash, the cannon's harsh command, 
The stern defiance and the scorn of fear, 

The high heart-purpose of the little band, 
Unmentioned heroes of the losing fray 

Whose witness is the writing angel. Lo, 
The page awaits that one supremest day 

Wherein the nations shall its brightness know, 
For then the records of the world are writ, 
And Justice on her judgment seat doth sit. 



40 



LEVIATHAN 

TJROUD monarch throned upon the proudest wave 
-*• Afar they sweep those liquid realms of thine. 
The caverned Sea reveals her grandest cave 

Beaming with treasure of her richest mine; 
But thou wilt not the wall, the roof, though kings 

Believe a palace in a prison fair. 
And have their joy in such alluring things 

As gild thy passage to the domed air. 
Leviathan; the world above thy birth, 

Finding the waters in that natal hour, 
Thy need fulfilled with vital breath whose dearth 

Would prove the ending of thy prime of power. 
To some anointed, crowned, acclaimed as king. 
That fate befell amidst their honoring. 



41 



THE HARPER 

"Dure as yon planet of the golden eve, 
•^ Is every haunting measure, harper fair, 

Gold-crowned with wealth and glory of thy hair. 
A soulful, rapt Cecilia, wholly leave 
The downward gazing thou who dost perceive, 

In thy star-search, the twilight realms of blue 

Whereof thine eyes have caught the deepening hue. 
Find, for this pensive hour, the notes that grieve, 
The plaintive chords thy fingers deft should weave. 

Forget the joy of sun-enlightened day, 
The joy turned sadness at the dying beam, 

Or sound the music of some far away 
More restful sweet than any waking theme. 
And harking, hearing, we indeed shall dream. 



42 



MARGUERITE IN THE GARDEN 

T3EHOLD, his face is imaged on the deep, 
-'-^ The limpid calm, the yet unsounded sea. 

That till this hour thy bosom hid from thee. 
Ah, which is better, to rejoice, or weep? 
Ah, which is loss, to wholly lose, or keep ? 

Kind seems the hand from whence these flowers, 
and he 

These jewels left that maid so fair might be 
Even more fair. Pray what shall Hope yet reap 

From this, and one sweet, courteous look and 
word ? 

He comes ! Be still O heart so newly stirred ! 
He speaks ! Be virgin-mannered modest maid ! 

He woos ! Now is thy spinning all forgot. 
And Love's first garden, and the twilight shade 

Of Eden, grow around what Love has wrought. 

How ill-companioned thou, O Faust, to-night ! 

Stands yon thy master with a friendship feigned. 

Alas the woman! Her pure heart is pained 
Lest love prove faithless lust that shuns the light, 
And brings unto her paradise its blight. 

Stoop, stoop and crawl, O presence unexplained ! 

She thus should know thee serpent. Leave 
ungained 
Thy demon quest, and hellward take thy flight ! 

Behold, her soul of faith, thy scorn, false one ! 
Thy servant's plaything now, shall yet defy 

Thine utmost, and, though seemingly undone. 
In death's strong moment find the farthest sky. 

Therefrom her angel influence shall go 

To lift her lover from the final woe. 

43 



ON READING THE SECOND PART 
OF GOETHE'S FAUST 

T3 Y Love uplifted, knowledge shall in thee 
^-^ Attain to Wisdom, leaven of thy days. 
Abide ! God's purpose bids thee here abide 
Till, free amidst the flowery snares of earth, 
Thou loathest all that bound thy lustful heart. 

Again, O Faust, the tempter and the toil ! 
Again enticement by the fiend devised ! 
Behold her! Helen conjured from the years. 
The Grecian years, the memorable past ! 

O joy ! O marvel ! Final, full escape ! 
The artist and the poet, inly born, 
Fulfill with purer sight thine eyes, thy thought 
With Love's first prompting pure, thy lofty dreams 
With goal most lofty, all-inclusive Love. 
Because in thee is Wisdom Love-inspired, 
Thou slippest daily from the grasp of one 
Deeming that more he knows whom less he knows 
With every bounty by his guile bestowed. 
Stranger to Wisdom since from Heaven he turned, 
Both love and lust confounds he evermore ; 
To him both rule and station prompt man's pride. 
Occasion moves indeed the grasping hand. 
And covetous heart, and all that makes for Hell. 

Hail ! man of noble aim approved of eyes 
Immortal ! Hail ! thou philanthropic wise ! 
Thy years, a hundred, quench the glance abroad 
On every benefaction of thine age. 
But Time wide-opens now the clearer eye 

44 



Deed-searching to the very real of life. 

Hail ! Hail ! for whom the welcoming portals turn ! 

Hail ! Hail ! thou welcomed of the choiring host ! 

Hail ! Hail ! Great Love attained, even Gretchen, draws 

Attained Wisdom to herself, while he 

The Fiend, twice-cheated of his demon end, 

To Heaven has lost the plotted gain of Hell. 



45 



o 



TO BLANCHE 

LET me strive, for dear Love's sake, 



To touch thy heart's most hidden string ! 
And music, hushed before, shall wake 
Obedient to my summoning. 

O let me, sweet, thine eyes explore, 

Or lose me in their bluest deep! 
Renouncing freedom evermore, 

My soul doth crave such prison keep. 

O let me, bending o'er thy head. 
With ardent fingers touch thy hair ! 

Or let my eager palms, instead. 
Caress its wealth, a wavy snare ! 

O let me press thy cheek's ripe rose 

A-bloom beside the lily's white ! 
Because the lily chastely blows. 

The other gives a warm delight. 

O let me dream, beholding thee, 

Of bashful kisses on thy brow ! 
Or let the waking rapture be 

Of lips so near they meet somehow ! 

And Love, in sudden transport dumb. 
Needs not one word, one tender phrase, 

To crown the perfect moment come, 
Foretelling all the blissful days. 



46 



THE TEMPLE AND THE CHRIST 



T?ROM His bright throne descending, as 

-*- from yon central sphere, 

The long-foretold fulfilling, the Master shall 
appear. 

His message, His revealing, the Truth where- 
with He came. 

Whose inner word, withholden. His lips shall 
later frame. 



The mortal birth transcending, the garden and 

the cross. 
Doom-shadowed Rome behind Him, and all a 

people's loss, 
The Temple veil asunder, the very shrine 

profaned. 
The walls and roof a ruin, the place thereof 

blood-stained, 

Jerusalem down-trodden, the tribes dispersed 

afar, 
Proud Judah's ancient glory a dead and sunken 

star. 
He bids a world-wide nation attain the higher 

way. 
Arise, His later seeking, and greet the larger 

day! 

And hath He not a temple upbuilding through 

all time.'' 
Before historic ages, back in the world's young 

prime, 

47 



Its walls were based on service, on duty man 
to man, 

And love to all beneath him in Love's embrac- 
ing plan. 

In mass and strength and beauty, the lifted pile 

doth grow 
With never noise of shaping, nor jar of hammer 

blow- 
Bring not the gold of Ophar, not what the 

world doth count ! 
Bring not the fir, the olive, the cedar from the 

mount ! 

But bring yourselves, O brothers ! as men before 

have brought. 
And bring that sacrificing wherewith the builders 

wrought 
Who fashioned and who fitted how oft with 

martyr's hand ! 
And with their blood cemented that so the 

building stand. 

Upon its daily growing Shekinah pours His 
light, 

The Silent Watcher looketh whose Unit Ray 
is white. 

In turn the "Sacred Seven," their nightly 
journey through. 

And every distant Center, looks from the deep- 
ening blue. 

Hid in the outer pillars, the Temple records 

bide. 
By master-workmen written, and fellow-crafts 

beside. 

48 



The secret Name is blazing within an upper 

room, 
Jerusalem prepares her to greet the heavenly 

Groom. 

Behind the Temple curtain is syllabled the 

Word; 
The three-fold veil is parting, and mysteries are 

heard 
By ears one day made ready, at length by all ; 

and then 
The Truth is to the nations, the brotherhood 

of men. 



49 



THE PRODIGAL SON 

yA/ ITHIN the many-mansioned house on high — 
* * The Father visible, His table spread, 

And all in common — one did choose, instead, 
The life self-love, the self-deceived, would try. 
The sapping pleasures of this world awry 

In Truth's appointed orbit. Downward sped, 
Self-guided seeker, now his feet are led 
Far as the farthest of the lands which lie 
Beneath the glory of the sleepless eye. 

Dread famine and the pinch of want are there. 

Bankrupt of substance as the fruitless ground, 
Must he, the great King's son. Creation's heir, 
Self-bound to beasts unclean, forego the 

grain, 
And, with the husks of Wisdom, ease his 
pain. 

Self-parted from thy source art thou, O son. 
In whose own hand is held the chastening rod ! 
Look up, companion of the vilest clod ! 
Looking, thine empty wandering is done 
For looking is the heart-return begun. 
Knowest the ladder by the angels trod 
In bright ascension to the throne of God ? 
E'en such the lifting rungs thy feet have won. 
Seest the Father? Seeing, ere thy sight. 
He hurries, bringing, from his open door, 
Embrace and kiss the double pledge of yore. 
"These shoes thy strength, this robe thy 

princely power. 
This ring, my child, reunion from this hour, 
Come ! feast on Wisdom ! 'Tis thy heavenly right." 

50 



THE MARRIAGE AT CANA 

T_TOW deep the wine of earthly passion stains 
-■- -*■ Man's life, pure-flowing from the heavenly 
spring, 
Till he, God's vessel, seems a common thing 
More carnal grown with every cup he drains. 
'Tis marriage feast, but ah, its mid-hour wanes ! 
"They have no wine" the Mother Mary spake, 
Whereat the Master, for the people's sake. 
Foreshowing that to which mankind attains, 
" Fill now the vessels even to the brim ! " 

" Draw out and serve the governor of the feast ! " 
'Tis passion purged, transformed to love by Him, 
They drink at Cana even to the least. 
Ah, rosy wine, the people thirst in vain ! 
Delayest yet until the worse they drain.? 



51 



TRUE RICHES 

" Sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou 
shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me." 

'TT^HE dross of earthly nature men will choose 

-■- Though heavenly treasure wait at reach of hand. 
The little held, the larger grasp they lose, 

And in the eye of Wisdom empty stand. 
"Transmute thy wealth to what, outvaluing dross, 

By heaven's divinest alchemy is gold 
Which given, thou in nothing knowest loss 

Since all the heights repay thee. Be enrolled 
With those high, humble ones, those followers mine 

Dispensing substance and receiving power. 
Then are the poor enriched and, law divine. 

Thyself acquirest in that mutual hour. 
Shunning my path, or in it turning back, 
With all thy having thou dost one thing lack." 



52 



LIGHT 

"And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness 
comprehended it not." 

OLOVE ! O Light ! O Word-begotten Sun ! 
Thou vibrant Word to orbs that in their course 
Sound back thy giving to its parent source 
As Memnon singing at the morn begun, 
Or Rishi lifting, when the dark is done, 
His heart-orison to the greater Heart. 
Is there that loveth? He in Love hath part; 
In Light he lives for Love and Light are one. 

Beats there a heart where naught of Love abides .'' 
The fiend, self-blinded, o'er that night presides 
Though Love stand knocking, knocking, and should 
say, 
"I am in thee; thou art in me." Alas ! 
Man's mortal self Love-Light can never pass ! 
That wall of gloom withstands the shining day. 



53 



THE TEN VIRGINS 

THE oil of love enkindled in the heart, 
They go, the wise and foolish, every one. 
Since love of self is but love's poorer part, 

It dulls and fades till fools are all undone. 
Ah, when the Bridegroom comes, how can they borrow 

Seeing the wise have only what they ought? 
*Tis midnight, and no sign foretells the morrow; 

Hence, fools, and buy such oil as can be bought ! 
Vain purchase in whose plenty is decrease ! 

Vain journey, and vain knocking at the door ! 
Folly doth enter never into peace ; 

Her lamps, renewed, burn lurid as before. 
When to her heavenly Groom the soul aspires, 
Love's purest oil must feed the nuptial fires. 



54 



THE GOOD SAMARITAN 

FROM Salem, city of his soul's defense, 
The holy city round about his days. 
One journeyed till the fiends of recompense 

Did rob and rend him in the dangerous ways. 
Self-righteousness in priestly garb passed by, 

Likewise the Levite, on the other side. 
Holding it just that broken there he lie. 

They shewed no mercy, and its law denied. 
From David's city coming not, there came 

One deemed a sinner, yet a man withal. 
" Brother, whose human need outweigheth blame ! 

Thine ills, sin wrought, I soothe and, lest thou fall. 
With thy dead heaviness my beast shall bend 
Unto the refuge where thy soul shall mend." 



55 



THE PARABLE OF THE VINE 

^~\ LIFE, thou fruitful and eternal Vine 
^^ Deep-rooted in the heart of Mystery ! 

Unnumbered worlds are branches but of thee 
Whose rightful vintage is the heavenly wine, 
The nectar nourishing a godly line. 

And yet, surpassing strange ! thy yield can be 
Mere emptiness, or all perversity. 
This known, the Master saith, "Ye all are Mine, 
Such branches being as your wine shall prove, 
Or barren things the which shall God remove. 
Whoso is fruitful purging maketh pure : 
Unfruitfulness in nowise can endure. 
Hateful in presence and in very name, 
Cast it to rubbish and consuming flame ! " 



56 



LOVE-WISDOM 

" Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and 
hast revealed them unto babes. 



'T 



^IS thy conceit that knowledge guideth thee 
To that one place where Wisdom doth abide, 
Life's hidden Heart, its central Mystery. 

Thereto Love leadeth, Love alone ; but pride 
Of knowledge doometh to the dark and small 

Thy soul self-hindered from the shining sphere. 
So she, deluded, blind, ignores the All ; 

Love-Wisdom round about her, far but near. 
In that pure Love the babe well typifies, 

That Wisdom just beneath the straining eye 
Of him deemed prudent, and the worldly wise, 

Is found the seeking of the humble High. 
Why search the sea.? Why deeply dig the mine? 
Thy wealth is gathered to that heart of thine. 



57 



THE PARABLE OF THE LEAVEN 

r\ MIND ! O Love ! O Life ! Thou Father One ! 

^^ High-ruling and down-reaching only Power ! 
Great God Triune who doth all worlds endower; 

Even this thy humblest Mind-born, Love-born son ! 

Lo, when the Word vibrated, and 'twas done. 
Thou leaven wast, and, always, since that hour, 
In worlds Thou hidest, therefore shall they tower 

Unto the kingdom ere all time has run. 

O mind ! O love ! O life ! Thou man on earth ! 
Debased, debased, and yet a deathless thing ! 
The threefold enters, for thy leavening. 
Thyself threefold as all that gave thee birth. 

Far as God's reach, Himself shall leaven be, 
Lifting the creature from mortality. 



58 



DIVINE HEALING 

" Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast 
out devils." 

\ X 7HEN Jesus, Master of Compassion, spake, 
^ " Straightway the twelve on mercy's mission went 
Self-seeking never, but with love-intent. 

Abjuring self, for their high calling's sake, 

That profit scorning which the worldly take. 
Each so became God's faithful instrument, 
A purest purpose with the God-power blent 

When He the bonds of mortal pain did break. 

If Jesus once again command think ye 
A mortal creature should exact the fee 

God being healer? Ah, what common greed ! 
What sophistry ! What shallow self-deceit 
That so one gain that plenty, mortal sweet. 
Unto the covetous heart a loss indeed ! 



59 



THE LAST REVIEW 

May 24, 1865 

T TNFURLED to-day the flag of triumph waves; 
^^ For final victory it floateth free. 
Teller of finished war; bright badge of peace; 
Sweet pledge of union, every star restored, 
On roofs, the loftiest, it proud proclaims 
The loyal hour of celebration due. 
Ye hosts that bivouaced by the capitol ! 
Armies of Georgia and the Tennessee ! 
Defenders ! Vindicators ! Glory winners 
On southern and on western fields renowned ! 
Awakened why ere yet the bugle bade t 
No powder scent was in the early air. 
The smoke has lifted, and the thunder sleeps ; 
For mercy suing lies the broken foe, 
And ye, as ready as in war, forgive. 
Encampers round the city of our pride ! 
Proved rank and file of Sherman's doughty band ! 
Those banners waving mean ye mass and march ; 
These roomy avenues await your tread, 
Their eager multitudes your last review. 

Hark ! ' tis the war-drum's reminiscent roll ; 
The swell of brass, the cornet's piercing call, 
The trombone's tune heroic, and the shout 
Of fervor waxing as in view the wide 
And solid phalanx moves majestic yon. 
With tread athletic, firm, of tough campaigners, 
Draw near ye sun-tanned ! Show the scars ye won, 
Proud battle-marks by beauty never scorned. 
Show all that tells the hero hailed of men, 

60 



Beloved of women ; aye, the bravest brave 
Our pulses stirring and our breasts to-day. 

The mettled chargers ! How they champ and fret, 

Impatient for the guns, the cannonade. 

The tumult of the battle-turning hour ! 

The bayonets, dread reminders of the charge. 

Shun now the hearts of fratricidal foes. 

Those proven swords, deep-dyed but yesterday, 

Flash naught of menace 'neath the staring sun. 

Those prompting bugles, winding not the war. 

In proud, commemorative halls shall hang. 

Inflaming drums that urged the conquering van ! 

Retreat has whirred reluctant in your strokes, 

And oft your muffled throbbing mourned the dead. 

Ye polished brazen tubes whose pitiless mouths 

Have belched destruction through the checked assault; 

Wheel on in silence ! Let your throats be dumb ! 

In silence moving, seek no scenes of blood 

Ye gunners trained in all your direful task ! 

Ye flags of battle never trailed in dust. 

But onward, onward, onward borne till set 

O'er conquered ramparts high ! With grief we mark, 

With grief, each crimson stain, reminder sole — 

Save deathless fame — of bearers fallen ! Now, 

Like theirs, your dedicated work is done ; 

A nation's knee of homage bends indeed 

As through your tatters mourneth soft the wind. 

Soldiers immune, escaped the death of fields ! 
You moving wall ! Resistless avalanche 
That rolled with Sherman to the Georgian strand ! 
Ye thousands, tens of thousands, tramping 'neath 

61 



The festal hangings of this holiday ! 
Better your faded blue, a beauty more 
Than flowers the hand of Love is flinging; yea, 
More royal seeming its dear, patriot hue 
Than purple splendor of the Tyrian years. 
With mein most martial, steady now ye ranks ! 
Behold, the moment tense, the moment proud. 
The moment of all moments cometh ! There 
He sits ! your chief with brow scarce eased of care. 
And eyes of vigil, thankful eyes though sad 
With dreaming down the weary past. Alas ! 
From his just place another looks ! another ! 
Not his the pen that signed the slave's release 
Making yon ample and historic dome 
The symbol of a larger liberty. 

With Vicksburg sieged and fallen, in the rear. 

And Chattanooga's rough campaigning done, 

Atlanta prize of war. Savannah yours. 

The Carolina days indeed behind. 

And all that prompts the hostile hand to hand, 

Henceforth behold in retrospect this seat 

Of rule and centered power, the peopled ways, 

The cheering multitudes, the gay festoons, 

The banners flying, and the garlands flung. 

Leave now the side by side of comrades proved 

In camp and bivouac, victory, repulse ! 

Leave now the tall-domed capitol, the chief 

Of armies, navies, him the martyred king — 

Uncrowned of Earth — down-looking from the heavens ! 

All this a memory grown of martial times, 
Move on into the civic walks of peace ! 

62 



Its duties, trials, real and stern as any, 
Shall discipline each day the warrior's heart. 
Move on to all that makes the citizen ; 
To all that makes a happy, prosperous nation 
Move on ; move on to suffer self-defeat 
Should e'er the soldier waver in your breast ! 



63 



A SONG OF LABOR 



^ I ''HE Earth from her fullness of blessing, 

■*■ predestined for man, 
Made ready the prizes of labor ere Eden began. 
No Eden to thrive without keeping would 

Wisdom ordain ; 
No garden to idlers free-giving what labor 

should gain. 

By labor the body hath living, by labor the 

soul 
Whose Author, by labor unceasing, preserveth 

the whole. 
An earning, more sweet to his mouth than 

unmerited bread, 
With sweat of his brow yet upon him, man 

eateth instead. 

When forth to the ground and its tilling, God 

drave from the gate 
The fallen midst pleasure and plenty, they 

sorrowed at fate ; 
Then strengthened their hearts unto toil, unto 

labor indeed. 
As yet must the sons of far Adam, his laboring 

seed. 

Men turned the thick sod of the meadow, nor 

knew of the plow ; 
With wood and with stone was the digging; 

rude seemeth it now. 



64 



At length, for the saving of sinews, they tore 

from the hill. 
And smelted and hammered the iron, a plow 

for us still. 

The bullock could draw, and the horse proved 

a need-serving thing ; 
The ass and the camel were bearers, but man, 

he was king. 
The paddle was plied on the river, the sail and 

the oar 
Returned, with the weight of much getting, the 

ship to the shore. 

And therefore with joy of possession, man's toil 

did increase; 
High-dreaming of labors unnumbered, he 

dreamed without cease. 
To dream and to do was he shapen from more 

than the dust; 
Not dreaming, not doing, he dieth all eaten of 

rust. 

Men builded them cities and dwellings ; cour- 
ageous they wrought; 

With stone and with brick they engirt them 
for this was their thought, 

"The others with wealth we have gotten their 
coffers would fill ; 

A lusting for riches upon them, they plan but 
our ill." 

Soon, soon came the seige and the sacking, and 
labor was lost. 



65 



Defenses down-battered to ruin, the toil and 

the cost 
Quick-leading to smoke and to slaughter, O 

why trouble more ! 
Arise ! 'tis your birthright to labor. Be men 

as before ! 

And thus, down the ages, the ring of the spirits 

clear cry ! 
The spirit of Love, stern compeller, drives low 

unto high. 
We think of the place of our fathers, with pity 

we think, 
"Though dwarfish they groped in a hollow, 

we gaze from the brink." 

Alas for our pride ! From some peak the bold 

climbers will say, 
'The span of your vision seems short unto 

blindness to-day. 
You talked with the sea-sundered nations ; we 

ask of the stars 
To teach us save what, from their searching, 

the Infinite bars. 

"Weak wings for precarious flight took your 

hazarding few; 
We float where the cloud floats, well-shaming 

the winds that pursue. 
We lift to the soft, lulling voyage when the 

east is unfurled ; 
We traverse the pole, the equator, the roof of 

the world. 



66 



"We skim the wide regions of fruitage from 

desert reclaimed 
By Labor the God-serving, man-serving; Labor 

the famed. 
He ploughs the arenas of battle ; he sows where 

they fought 
When neighbor would turn upon neighbor by 

passion distraught. 

"We frown upon such as incline to luxurious 

ease, 
The pampered, the proud, and the slothful. 

Our hive is for bees. 
We gather in one common storing, and share 

what we earn 
That never to rancor and envy the hearts of 

us turn. 

"We break not the coal from the strata, the 

Earth's buried store, 
A mine and a use unto peoples who labored 

of yore. 
Why kindle bituminous flame, or the wood 

flame instead. 
While daily the huge cosmic dynamo flames 

overhead ? 

The axman must plant when he felleth the 

good forest tree; 
From creatures that raven and trouble its 

shadows are free. 
There roam our brute brothers unrisen to 

man's elder line. 
Our kin through a bond, all-inclusive, that 

sages define. 

67 



" How faithful the alchemist, lighting his 

crucible flame ! 
How faithful replenishing ever though joy 

never came ! 
We prove him a prophet dispraised, one who 

died without sight 
Save that to the prophet God-granted, a glimpse 

of the light. 

"Why groweth the seed to its kind the good 

reason we show ; 
The seed that continues the kingdom of high 

or of low. 
How kingdoms would mix to confusion ! but 

Nature foresaw. 
The cause we expound of their thwarting, the 

deep-hidden law. 

" Prepared for our mightiest doing, is harnessed 

the sun; 
Behold ! from the ultimate atom a marvel is 

won. 
How crawled on the highways the horseless, 

your chariot pride. 
Till we, the great planet-subduers, were ready 

to ride. 

"Our ships, the unsinkable sailors by storm 

never veered. 
Are fearing the fury of ocean as zephyrs are 

feared. 
We steer 'neath the sweep of his waters 

through every zone ; 
We seek in the midmost sea cave lest a thing 

be unknown." 



68 



"We live as our fathers have lived, but we 

double their years ; 
The plagues of the body we banish, the causes 

of tears ; 
Our faith wholly merged in foreknowledge, 

life's riddle we know; 
Let dust be our doom, we despair not; 

undying we go." 

The Earth with her fullness of blessing, pre- 
destined for man, 

Made ready the prizes of labor ere Eden 
began ; 

And on to the latest high glory her tribes shall 
attain, 

The children of men will be telling what labor 
doth gain. 



69 



KING EDWARD 

nr^HE Earth has passed her morning time, 

-*■ The fever of her youth abates, 
A calm is coming to her prime ; 
God speed the promise man awaits ! 

The Earth grows wiser till the flame 

Of kindled and rekindled strife 
To her is hateful, and war's name 

Is coupled with the savage life. 

She calls her chiefest, as of old, 

But bids them, choosing, shun the sword. 
She half disdains the warrior mould 

Where men were shapen at her word. 

The crowned is but her steward high 
On whom may royal wisdom wait 

That, looming in the public eye, 
He merit blessing more than hate ! 

Loved King ; once filling empire's throne ! 

The olive to thy heart was dear ; 
For thee a people make their moan, 

And drops the universal tear. 

The realms abroad, and every isle. 
Have known a reign so mild and just 

That sovereign Edward seemed, the while, 
A servant faithful to his trust. 

His brief and busy rule is done ; 

How swift his orb ! we sadly say ; 
But deeds, well ended as begun. 

Were more the measure of his day. 

70 



To smooth all differings ere the stroke 
That leads to many, was his gift ; 

To quench disaster ere the smoke 

That spreads alarm, could skyward lift. 

From Dover cliff to Calais shore 
Fly auguries of war's decrease 

And Agincourt, and Crecy's roar, 

Have sunk to wooing words of peace. 

No more those jealousies, accursed, 
Which shook Sebastopol, return ; 

Of hate no more such hot outburst 
To Europe's very heart shall burn, 

For he, who did no gauntlet fling. 
Would have the nations nearer one. 

He showed the purpose of a king 
As should Victoria's royal son. 

A man, and then a monarch, he. 
Requiring all of deference due. 

Craved naught for Edward ; place must be 
That worthy mountain, well in view, 

Where England's glory gilds the crest. 
And Australasia pours her light. 

And Canada's high star doth rest, 
And India's beam is orient bright. 

Though war lords prate of right divine. 
The people did through Edward rule. 

Who vaunts the privilege of line 
Doth babble even as the fool. 



71 



The praise of kings our land has heard 
Though kingless save as God doth crown, 

But " brother " was a binding word 
Ere kings had gotten their renown. 

We greeted once the generous youth ; 

The prince unto our hearts came nigh ; 
We mourn the king, but ah, in truth. 

The all-death-sundered brother tie. 

O'er Britain may no cloud be drawn 
Save that of sorrow for her head ! 

That cloud shall brighten as the morn 
For lo, he joins the risen dead ! 




rwife 






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HECKMAN 
BINDERY INC. |e 

.#^ DEC 88 







